The top ten sellers this year are dominated by bmw and yamaha. They take 6 of the ten spots. Triumph takes two. Honda and kawadaki barely squeezing in. No harely, no ducati, no suzuki. I did a video on this in my rode to freedom vlog. However, I do not yet have the status needed to post links so I am just putting this up as a conversation piece. Your thoughts?
HD had a major dealer show in LA and they announced they were cutting back production. Check out the video posted by Matt Laidlaw. He brodcast the entire thing over YouTube.
Anyway, the company saw a dip in stock the day after. Well, go figure! When you are celebrating 115 year anniversary and you release only 1200 of the flagship bike for the anniversary for the world PLUS announce cutting back production, you are going to lose market. Then factor in how the HD brand is so much more expensive overseas, there goes more market share. So in steps Yamaha with a touring bike that has more for the buck plus the blue crew has racing development on their side. Sure Harley had dirt track and drag strip, but that is not all there is too racing.
As far as not being "all in" for the American brands - meh. Innovation, reliability, and recognizing that not all riders can afford $22K USD bikes is more important. Would I sell my awesome machine? Ha! I keep getting hounded by the dealers and my reply is, "Sure, you give $18K for him". They won't do that. So I keep working on getting the bike perfect and keep searching for the perfect bike.
Which leads to my next point . . .
I think brand loyalty is foolish, buy the best bike for your needs. I have a lot of love for KTM, but if they don't provide the goods with an "R" version of the 790 they may well lose a sale or two to Triumph!
I totally agree on brand loyalty being a bit foolish. I recently had a conversation with a person who wondered why Facebook would load all my other videos after the whatever one I shot for certain riding group. They took exception with me having videos of my "personal opinion". So I asked what they meant. It seems that they are 100% HD all the way. So I took few minutes to educate them that I am a motorcycle enthusiast. Then I showed how if I did not publish the video of their rides in the manner I do they would get other videos from other sources regardless about all kinds of stuff so why not watch the competition has to offer?
Brand loyalty is ok
if the brand keeps earning it, otherwise it is just being a fanboy.
